Construction union UCATT have exposed the growing problem of employment agencies ignoring safety laws on protective equipment and are now calling for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to take action on the matter.

UCATT officials have become increasingly alarmed that many employment agencies require construction workers to supply their own Personal Protective Equipment or alternatively charge the worker if they supply it.

Safety regulations established in 1992 clearly state that this should not be the case. The regulations say: "Personal Protective Equipment is to be supplied and used at work wherever there are risks to health and safety that cannot be adequately controlled in other ways" and "an employer cannot ask for money from an employee for PPE, whether it is returnable or not".

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Dennis Doody, UCATT Executive Council member, raised the union's concerns at CONIAC (the HSE’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee). He said: "Increasingly UCATT officials are finding that agencies are forcing workers to supply their own PPE. This is against safety regulations and given growing concerns about fake and counterfeit PPE, being available in the construction industry, places already vulnerable workers at greater risk of injury."

Mr Doody named several well-known agencies where this had been an issue but identified Bespoke Recruitment in particular, which is run by Simon Noakes, the chair of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) construction group. Mr Noakes has previously claimed that REC, the trade association for employment agencies, has "a specific focus on the health and safety of the flexible workforce".

Despite Mr Noakes' concern for health and safety, many of the jobs advertised on his companies website have a requirement for applicants to have PPE.

Mr Doody, added: "REC claim that they take safety seriously, however until senior people in that organisation begin to follow safety regulations themselves, then construction workers will need to take these pledges with a very large pinch of salt."

UCATT are now seeking assurances from the HSE that inspectors will ensure that when conducting safety inspections that PPE is being freely supplied and that special focus is applied to workers employed by employment agencies.

(CD)